It would be difficult to point to a book containing so great an amount of information, conveyed in so pleasant a manner, as we find in Mr. Copeland's book on Country Life. In the form of a calendar, or directions for each month of the year, beginning with September, and ending with the next August, he tells us how everything should be managed on a farm and in a garden, in the care of stock and of stock-gillies, on ploughed fields, lawns, forest lands, and also in green-houses, conservatories, Wardian cases, and hot-beds. It is, of course, impossible, as Mr. Copeland says, that any one man should treat so vast a subject, and one so purely experimental, in an original manner, and without indebtedness. to previous writers. He has used freely the best English and American authorities, and given us not his own opinions so much as the results of the largest experience of American farmers and gardeners. The book is, however, by no means a mere compilation; Mr. Copeland has fused all his materials into a well-cemented mosaic, that seems like a single piece. The style is, for the most part, clear and forcible. No practical farmer could fail to be interested in the accounts given of work to be done on the farm, or fail to be benefited by such discussions as those on the mode and value of draining, the mode of cultivating and harvesting Indian corn, the nature and use of manures, &c., contained in "Country Life." No man, who owns even a half-acre for a garden spot, could fail to understand and derive pleasure and benefit from the advice on laying out village gardens. But the book, treasury of agricultural and horticultural knowledge though it be, condensing the sum and substance of half a dozen volumes into one, is especially valuable for the spirit of healthy enthusiasm which is breathed through the whole. The author glows with a love for beauty, and regards his special art of landscape gardening with affectionate reverence, as a cooperation with the Divine Husbandman. In the midst of prosaic directions for farming and gardening work, we can see, by the choice of his words, that there is a fountain of poesy in his heart; and, it may be, before he has written a page further, we find it has burst forth, with a richness of fancy and a depth of feeling that carries us at once away with him. We feel that we have gained from his description of October weather, his eulogy on the red cedar, his picture of a broken waterfall, his comparison of a farmer's life with that of other men, his account of roses, his few words on May-day, his remonstrance against scraping the trunks of ornamental trees, his balancing of the advantages and disadvantages of making a study of things about the farm, from these, and similar passages, we have gained a new power of enjoyment, and our hearts will be, henceforth for ever, more open to the reception of the sweet influences that are poured upon us through the natural beauty of the world.

The book is well printed and bound, illustrated by numerous cuts, by views of beautiful places in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and by a colored plan for laying out a country

*Country Life; a Hand-Book of Agriculture, Horticulture, and Landscape Gardening. By R. MORRIS COPELAND. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. 1859. 8vo. pp. 813.

place of sixty acres. We can, with great confidence, recommend it to all who take even the slightest interest in any of the matters pertaining to country life, as containing much pleasant reading and much valuable information.

THOUGH Mr. Dana spent only twelve days in Cuba, he evidently made a judicious use of his time, and the volume, in which he has recorded his impressions of Cuba and the Cubans, furnishes a positive addition to our knowledge of that attractive subject.* Sailing from New York in the steamer Cahawba, about the middle of February, and returning, early in March, in the return trip of the same vessel, he yet found time to see most of the objects of interest in Havana, to make an excursion to Matanzas, and to spend two or three days on a sugar-plantation. He was thus enabled to crowd much into a very brief space, and to see various phases of Cuban life. The outline which he drew from personal observation has been filled up apparently from other sources of information; and his picture of Cuba has a fulness of detail which could scarcely have been obtained in so hurried a visit, without the aid of much previous reading. In regard to the general aspect of society in Havana, the management of sugar-plantations, the condition of the slaves, the relation of the island to the mother country, and other topics, he has much that is interesting to communicate. His style is smooth and graceful; his descriptions are clear and exact; his comments, on what he saw, candidly and modestly stated; and the whole tone of his book is genial and healthful. Occasionally we notice some slight inaccuracy; but, on the whole, his statements are remarkably careful and accurate. Great as was the popularity attained by Mr. Dana's Two Years before the Mast, we cannot, but think that this volume will add to his reputation.

WE have designed, from time to time, to chronicle what we may call the vacation studies which M. Michelet attaches, as unique and brilliant pendants, to the serious work of his life, the great History of France, now nearly complete. These little volumes † we take up together,the first two being true recreations from harsher studies and graver thoughts; the last, the expression of thoughts that had been long maturing on those questions of family affection and morals, which point to the profoundest wants of modern society. All of them are in a very pleasant way autobiographical. The summer leisure in Switzerland, or by the sea-side, or at Fontainebleau; the affectionate and minute observation which broods upon the nestlings of the linnet, or studies "whether the insect have a physiognomy"; the more than child-like, because refined and thoughtful, sympathy with all forms of living things; the keen intuition which seizes the scientific fact as the hint always of a spiritual truth; the chance glimpses of a home-life of rare tenderness and

*A Trip to Cuba and Back: a Vacation Voyage. By RICHARD HENRY DANA, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1859. 16mo. pp. 288. † L'Oiseau. L'Insecte. L'Amour. 12mo. 1856, 1857, 1859.

J. MICHELET. Paris: Hachette & Cie.

mutual honor and help; the profound instinct of sympathy, which keeps the heart warm and sound through the exploration of the saddest realities; these are personal traits, and personal revelations, none the less interesting that they are not made through the medium of a professed biography. The naturalist or the moralist, as well as the historian, needs that insight of genius and sympathy which Michelet displays in so rare a measure. Fantastic, exaggerated, sentimental perhaps, and what might seem affected in a different sort of mind, he is at times, — faults we forgive easily enough in the sense of charm and value we are sure to find in his writings.

66

It is difficult to characterize the last on our list. It has grown, evidently enough, out of the deep sense of the need of such a book, and has taken shape from long brooding, and a very vivid experience. What most strikes the reader in it is the amazing frankness and directness with which the details of the subject are approached. Love," says M. Michelet, "has generally been taken only at its culmination, its least instructive side. It has a side of natural history, one of profound fatality, which has vast influence on its moral development, as well as its free and voluntary side, where moral art may act upon it. Both have been neglected; and this volume is a first essay to fill the void." It is in form, in great part, a direct address to the young man who with honorable affection seeks to lay the foundation of a home; or to those of maturer age, who so often fail to read the deeper lesson of their own experience. Its moral tone, at once warm and pure, and utterly in earnest, is the best recommendation of the counsels it conveys. No one, we are sure, capable of reading it at all, can fail to profit by the thoughts of tenderness it contains, and the discipline of an undying affection which it suggests. As the exposition, too, of a new method of dealing with some of the practical questions that turn up in our social morals, 66 some practical aspects of the so-called woman question,” it is not without curiosity and value.

PAMPHLETS.

Ir is a grateful service to record the four obituary Discourses to which we have before made brief allusion. All are discriminating, as well as earnest and affectionate, in their eulogy; all give the impression of faithful, devoted, self-denying laborers in a sacred cause and name. The serene beauty of a long life, of which near sixty years were spent in one, harmonious, successful, happy ministry; the sadder lesson of a life broken off in the midst by ill health and sorrow and disappointment, yet stanch, strong, and true in its consecrating spirit to the last; and the early graces of fervent piety, clear and brilliant intellect, and moral

*1. A Sermon delivered at Plymouth, at the Funeral of Rev. James Kendall, D. D., March 20, 1859. By GEORGE W. BRIGGS.-2. A Sermon preached in the First Parish Church, Concord, December 10, 1858, at the Burial of Rev. Barzillai Frost. By HENRY A. MILES.-3. A Sermon occasioned by the Death of Rev. George Bradford, preached in the First Church, Watertown (Mass.), Feb. 27, 1859. 4. Funeral Discourse, delivered in the Unitarian Church of Charleston (S. C.), April 7, 1859, at the Obsequies of Rev. James R. McFarland. By Rev. C. B. THOMAS.

worth, sacredly devoted to the service of Christian truth, and winning the highest order of success in the brief period for which they were granted, present a series of illustrations of the still vital influence, the need, and the reward, of a true ministry of the Christian Gospel. We are glad that such memorials should remain of four such lives,neither of them ambitious of distinction or influence outside its chosen sphere; and each giving, in its own way, a lesson of encouragement and faith to those without, as well as within, its own circle of personal acquaintance and sympathy. 1.76.94.

*

ONE of the finest and wholesomest examples of "political preaching" that we have seen is the Fast-day Sermon preached by Dr. Dewey, -rich in thought, manly and eloquent in tone, direct, positive, and clear in the declaration of opinion, and none the worse for the vein of loyal and patriotic pride that runs through and colors its counsels. Party politics, commercial morality, and slavery are treated in turn, explicitly and independently, - possibly with a more anxious spirit than some readers will share, and of course implying opinions in which not all agree. Several of its noble and eloquent and timely paragraphs we should be glad to copy, but content ourselves with the following:

"All the respectability, influence, wealth, learning, culture, in our cities, should be seen at the polls, and often at the primary meetings. If in timidity, in cowardice, in fastidiousness or scorn, they stand back and give place to ignorance, brutality, and violence, whose then will the fault be, if the lower elements get uppermost? Troublesome, indeed! Let me tell you that something more troublesome will come; ay, trouble that we little think of now, if we neglect to guard the house. Troublesome, forsooth! Where are the courage and manliness and self-sacrifice of honest and honorable men? For I say, if we could truly understand it, that amidst ease and abundance and luxury there is as much self-sacrifice required to keep all right and safe, as there is in scenes of revolution and blood. We know, that if every man in this country will do his duty all will go well. And of whom may we demand that they do their duty, if not of those who have, or conceive they have, the most at stake? And what if such a man were stricken down by popular violence, stricken down at the polls, ay, murdered, martyred! It would be a glorious martyrdom. It would do more to appall the lawless and arouse the negligent, than a whole life could do.”—pp. 34, 35.

A SUMMER Sunday is taken as a text by Mr. Parker † to illustrate, in his peculiar manner, one of the favorite sentiments of a devout nature delighting in natural beauty as the sign of a higher presence. It is prefaced by a letter from Santa Cruz, which sets forth some of the more striking contrasts between the tropical and temperate zones, in the type of natural beauty they respectively offer.

* On Patriotism. The Condition, Prospects, and Duties of the American People. A Sermon delivered on Fast Day, at Church Green, Boston, by the REV. ORVILLE DEWEY. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

Beauty in the World of Matter considered as a Revelation of God. By REV. THEODORE PARKER. Boston: H. W. Swett & Co.

NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

THEOLOGY AND RELIGION.

The Atonement: Discourses and Treatises by Edwards, Smalley, Maxcy, Emmons, Griffin, Burge, and Weeks. With an Introductory Essay by Edwards A. Park. Boston: Congregational Board of Publication. 8vo. pp. 596. (See p. 137.)

Trinitarian Sermons preached to a Unitarian Congregation. With an Introduction on the Unitarian Failure. By Wm. L. Gage.. Boston: J. P.

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Trans

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